1. Technical Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to ornamental designs and methods of production therefor, and more particularly, to systems and methods for producing embroidered designs which are readily transferrable to various articles.
2. Description of Related Art
Embroidered designs have gained tremendous popularity in recent times for their obvious aesthetic appeal. This gain in popularity has led to increased interest in techniques for producing embroidered designs and embroidered articles.
One conventional method for making an embroidered article involves embroidering a design directly on an article, such as a garment, using a sewing machine. In ordinary practice, this method involves embroidering directly on fabric tailored to templates of garments, such as a front body, a back body, or pockets. This method has a multitude of shortcomings and deficiencies. Prior to sewing the garments, for example, the parts of the garments on which embroideries are to be formed have to be sent in and out. This adds time and transportation costs to the embroidering process. Actual transportation processes also likely introduce inefficiencies, which inefficiencies, coupled with added processing time, lower production. Lowered production and increased costs directly cause lower profit margins.
Furthermore, at present, embroideries made by sewing machines must be reinforced to prevent defects due to differences in tension between upper and lower threads that are stitched together in an embroidered design. This reinforcement generally involves attachment of a non-woven fabric over the bottom threads, that is, generally on the inside of an embroidered garment. Many wearers of such garments find such covered bottom threads to be uncomfortable. Additionally, embroidering on such products as garments, hats and headgear, footwear, bags, cases, stationary and household items requires that the actual materials be brought into contact with the sewing machine. At best, such a process--involving bulky or odd-shaped articles in particular--is only inefficiently and unproductively accomplished; at worst embroidering may be impossible because of the inherent kind and nature of materials involved, or because of the shape of the products.
Another conventional method for producing an embroidered design on an article is to first embroider the design on a gauze-like material, which material is thereafter readily dissolved so as to leave only the embroidering thread which defines the design. Thereafter, the design can be sewn onto the article which it is intended to adorn. Like the first method discussed above, this method is cumbersome and expensive, and does not lend itself to any kind of efficient mass production technique.
Accordingly, there has arisen a need for a novel process for producing one or more embroidered designs, which process is susceptible to mass production, and which process produces designs that are efficiently transferrable to various articles including but not limited to such odd-shaped articles as those described above. Further, where multiple designs--which may be different from one another--are intended to be transferred simultaneously, it would be highly advantageous to be able to accurately control their positions, relative to one another as well as on the article, without sacrificing efficiency, productivity, or ease of operation.
Although various techniques which attempt to solve the problem of mass producing embroidered designs have been extant for some time, no such technique is known to have all of the advantages and novel features of the present invention described and claimed hereinbelow.